10 ms·

I can even excuse being personally disinterested in Cannabis, but you would have to be pretty entrenched in misinformation to hate cannabis itself. What societ

by RIMR 8y ago

I can even excuse being personally disinterested in Cannabis, but you would have to be pretty entrenched in misinformation to hate cannabis itself. What societal harm is there? The biggest complaint I ever hear that isn't based on a non-truth is "it smells bad".

dyarosla 8y ago
Didn’t downvote you but wanted to respond- Smells bad can itself be a big deal. Some people also have migraines that result from inhaling second hand marijuana smoke. Moreover, many people don’t want to smell the stuff in their daily commute- and the smell definitely lingers longer, than say, tobacco, in an open space. I’m not opposed to legalization, but saying that there’s no societal harm is pretty misinformed too. Seemingly minor things like ‘smells bad’ can easily make one hate cannabis.
- bfuller 8y ago
  Everyone is moving to vaping distillate. There's virtually no smell if you're outdoors.
- klank 8y ago
  > Seemingly minor things like ‘smells bad’ can easily make one hate cannabis. I think an individual hating something doesn't necessarily elevate that thing to the level of "societal harm". For example, durian smells bad. Many people hate it because of its smell. However, I've never heard somebody go on about the harm durian is causing to society.
  - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
    Durian is banned in the Singapore metro (with a sign alerting to the prohibition that has gone viral) because of its smell. Calling for keeping marijuana strictly illegal based on its smell is silly. Still, the smell is just as noxious as cigarette smoke to many people. I found walking around downtown Montevideo annoying. Legalization should come with some measures against smoking in public, just like those being applied to tobacco in many places around the world.
- nosleeptill 8y ago
  When both the negative and positives are all added up I think legalizing will have a moderate to large positive overall impact.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  I smell this every day in Amsterdam metro when I commute from work (the other way around not so much). I'm currently a non-smoker. If you 'smell it' you subconsciously feel like you are forced 'smoking it' akin to involuntary second hand tobacco usage. Whether that is true or not I do not know. As a former tobacco and former casual marihuana smoker I dislike either of these smells. I consciously quit both, both for very good personal reasons. There are obvious health related risks to abstain smoking tobacco but for me I have autism and marihuana can make me over-sensitised and get me into a psychosis. This occurred numerous times. Yes, there are benefits to marihuana and specifically CBD. My uncle had terminal cancer and hash oil helped him against this pain (he was AFAIK never pro-drugs or pro-marihuana before he got cancer). And there are disadvantages as well. I'm a proponent of education and regulation, just like with alcohol.
  - citrablue 8y ago
    I also feel like when I smell someones body odor that I have unconsciously been forced to ingest their bacterial waste. Living amongst other people, we have to accept that there will be things we don't like about it.
    - cbluth 8y ago
      Yeah, take a shower, geez.
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      There's this social norm where you don't cause discomfort such as noise or pollution for other people. Some people overdo it with way too much perfume; those are equally annoying. The difference however is that although such might over-sensitise someone with e.g. (undiagnosed) autism your example is not proven to be harmful for the lungs, nor does it make you stoned.
      - citrablue 8y ago
        What's the latest consensus on secondhand smoke and cancer/COPD issues? I thought the "I smelled cigarette smoke on the street" exposure was largely found to have negligible health effects. (I think the "my partner smokes and i live in a smokers house" exposure still causes issues)
- smileysteve 8y ago
  > Smells bad can itself be a big deal. Some people also have migraines that result from inhaling second hand marijuana smoke. Both of these apply to a not insignificant amount of the population when it comes to perfumes and flowers too. We should make Abercrombie cologne illegal; I sneeze at least twice when walking through the mall and sometimes get headaches.
sincerely 8y ago
Cannabis smokers have less qualms about driving under the influence than drinkers (in my experience) and from an enforcement perspective, it's harder to test for the presence of the drug because it stays in your system much longer (up to a month iirc?).
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Experience cannabis users are far less impaired than experienced drinkers though. Evidently once you get used to driving under the influence your brain adjusts. It doesn't work that way with alcohol.
  - underbluewaters 8y ago
    I tried it for 5 minutes during my college days when I was "experienced" and... no fucking way. Maybe there are people who aren't as impacted but that is a very big and dangerous assumption. Please stop perpetuating this idea unless you have a study to back it up.
    - mcbits 8y ago
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24411797 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24411797
    - drewmol 8y ago
      There's not a lot of great studies on this but if you look around at the nih.gov link there's plenty of related studies that would support the parent's claim. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-11-526 https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29487531 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29487531
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > Cannabis smokers have less qualms about driving under the influence than drinkers (in my experience) and from an enforcement perspective, it's harder to test for the presence of the drug because it stays in your system much longer (up to a month iirc?). There are so many substances that people can take that would impair their ability to drive. Many of them are available over the counter. Alcohol is the only one that's tested directly; it's the exception, not the norm.
Aloha 8y ago
it does smell bad. It's not a non-truth, its highly personal what smells good, or bad.
- ojbyrne 8y ago
  Reread the comment. It says the only complaint based on truth is that it smells bad. Once you decode the double negative.
Raphmedia 8y ago
> The biggest complaint I ever hear that isn't based on a non-truth is "it smells bad". Why should you send someone to jail based on their smell? You can legally cook pungent meals, burn smelly incense, slow cook meat over a stinking smoker, smoke fetid home rolled cigarettes, take one shower every month, have terribly foot fungus or a really bad case of farts. All smelly but legal things. Here in the Canadian town I live, you are not allowed to smoke or vape it on any public land. If you rent, your landlord has to agree to it. You can legalize it and still control it. To be honest, the smells decreased since it was made legal. Police would tolerate it so nobody called for "pot smell". That was a bad waste of resources. Now that it's up to the landlord to enforce it, people are more willing to call. I would never call the police on my neighbors for a smell. If I knew that someone went to jail over personal use because of me, I would feel really bad. However, I would ring the landlord in a heartbeat if their action was not allowed in the lease.
CompelTechnic 8y ago
I know people whose use of cannabis has been a crutch for problems in their lives, who have achieved less than they likely would have because it is so easy to do nothing, and stagnate, when drugs come easy. I also know people whose cannabis use has (unproveably, but likely) triggered latent schizophrenia. There are tradeoffs in everything, of course, and everyone is entitled to their own choices and ambitions, and these risks don't harm everyone who tries them, but put yourself in the shoes of the friends and family that see their loved one become a burnout. There can be real and justified hate of the drug when it has measurably damaged your family. There was an episode of South Park that addressed pot in a similar way- it is dangerous because it is so much fun you don't want to do anything else.
- jchrisa 8y ago
  If a portion of potential alcoholics become cannabis addicts instead, that's another net positive.
simonsarris 8y ago
> What societal harm is there? Brain damage in young adults. > "Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife" http://m.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full http://m.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full (2012)
- citrablue 8y ago
  Mobile site doesn't load on desktop, try [0] if you're on desktop. Addressing this study, it was a N=1038, cohort study that seems to only have adjusted for education. Further, there's a link on your cited article to [1], which is a response that suggests that the determining factor may have been personality, rather than cannabis use. There are other studies that indicate a similar conclusion, but I'm not clear how it's any different than any of a dozen socially accepted factors. The developing brain is very fragile. Playing football, or not getting enough exercise, can do similar damage. [0] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full http://www.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/110/11/E979 http://www.pnas.org/content/110/11/E979
SCAQTony 8y ago
The biggest complaint I have seen and read are MRI studies denoting reduced gray matter in the "orbitofrontal cortex" or that area of the brain which effects decision making. https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2016/09/regular-marijuana-use-associated-differences-in-brain-gray-matter-connectivity https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2016/09/reg...
acchow 8y ago
My parents are conservative and against legalization. I disagree with them hard but have gotten a better grasp of the conservative view. They also dislike alcohol use, especially due to drunk driving causing accidents. In the same way, they think allowing another substance to be legally consumed will increase impaired driving rates (even tho DUI is illegal). They think alcohol being legal has made it easier for high school students to obtain it. They think the same will happen with cannabis. They don't want substances (alcohol or otherwise) near their grandkids' brains. Alcohol has a breathalyzer test. There is no such spot test for cannabis intoxication. Which makes regulating drivers hard.
- scarface74 8y ago
  They think alcohol being legal has made it easier for high school students to obtain it. Trust me, it couldn’t get any easier for high school students to get marijuana than it currently is.
ionised 8y ago
It can trigger psychosis in people prone to depression and anxiety, which is why it bothers me when people suggest weed as a remedy to those things. Case-in-point: me. I'm still in favour of its legalisation but I'm not naive enough to believe there are no downsides to the substance. I've experienced many of them myself by abusing it for years.

by RIMR 8y ago

dyarosla 8y ago

Didn’t downvote you but wanted to respond- Smells bad can itself be a big deal. Some people also have migraines that result from inhaling second hand marijuana smoke. Moreover, many people don’t want to smell the stuff in their daily commute- and the smell definitely lingers longer, than say, tobacco, in an open space. I’m not opposed to legalization, but saying that there’s no societal harm is pretty misinformed too. Seemingly minor things like ‘smells bad’ can easily make one hate cannabis.

bfuller 8y ago
Everyone is moving to vaping distillate. There's virtually no smell if you're outdoors.
klank 8y ago
> Seemingly minor things like ‘smells bad’ can easily make one hate cannabis. I think an individual hating something doesn't necessarily elevate that thing to the level of "societal harm". For example, durian smells bad. Many people hate it because of its smell. However, I've never heard somebody go on about the harm durian is causing to society.
- Mediterraneo10 8y ago
  Durian is banned in the Singapore metro (with a sign alerting to the prohibition that has gone viral) because of its smell. Calling for keeping marijuana strictly illegal based on its smell is silly. Still, the smell is just as noxious as cigarette smoke to many people. I found walking around downtown Montevideo annoying. Legalization should come with some measures against smoking in public, just like those being applied to tobacco in many places around the world.
nosleeptill 8y ago
When both the negative and positives are all added up I think legalizing will have a moderate to large positive overall impact.
Fnoord 8y ago
I smell this every day in Amsterdam metro when I commute from work (the other way around not so much). I'm currently a non-smoker. If you 'smell it' you subconsciously feel like you are forced 'smoking it' akin to involuntary second hand tobacco usage. Whether that is true or not I do not know. As a former tobacco and former casual marihuana smoker I dislike either of these smells. I consciously quit both, both for very good personal reasons. There are obvious health related risks to abstain smoking tobacco but for me I have autism and marihuana can make me over-sensitised and get me into a psychosis. This occurred numerous times. Yes, there are benefits to marihuana and specifically CBD. My uncle had terminal cancer and hash oil helped him against this pain (he was AFAIK never pro-drugs or pro-marihuana before he got cancer). And there are disadvantages as well. I'm a proponent of education and regulation, just like with alcohol.
- citrablue 8y ago
  I also feel like when I smell someones body odor that I have unconsciously been forced to ingest their bacterial waste. Living amongst other people, we have to accept that there will be things we don't like about it.
  - cbluth 8y ago
    Yeah, take a shower, geez.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    There's this social norm where you don't cause discomfort such as noise or pollution for other people. Some people overdo it with way too much perfume; those are equally annoying. The difference however is that although such might over-sensitise someone with e.g. (undiagnosed) autism your example is not proven to be harmful for the lungs, nor does it make you stoned.
    - citrablue 8y ago
      What's the latest consensus on secondhand smoke and cancer/COPD issues? I thought the "I smelled cigarette smoke on the street" exposure was largely found to have negligible health effects. (I think the "my partner smokes and i live in a smokers house" exposure still causes issues)
smileysteve 8y ago
> Smells bad can itself be a big deal. Some people also have migraines that result from inhaling second hand marijuana smoke. Both of these apply to a not insignificant amount of the population when it comes to perfumes and flowers too. We should make Abercrombie cologne illegal; I sneeze at least twice when walking through the mall and sometimes get headaches.

sincerely 8y ago

Cannabis smokers have less qualms about driving under the influence than drinkers (in my experience) and from an enforcement perspective, it's harder to test for the presence of the drug because it stays in your system much longer (up to a month iirc?).

amanaplanacanal 8y ago
Experience cannabis users are far less impaired than experienced drinkers though. Evidently once you get used to driving under the influence your brain adjusts. It doesn't work that way with alcohol.
- underbluewaters 8y ago
  I tried it for 5 minutes during my college days when I was "experienced" and... no fucking way. Maybe there are people who aren't as impacted but that is a very big and dangerous assumption. Please stop perpetuating this idea unless you have a study to back it up.
  - mcbits 8y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24411797 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24411797
  - drewmol 8y ago
    There's not a lot of great studies on this but if you look around at the nih.gov link there's plenty of related studies that would support the parent's claim. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-11-526 https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29487531 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29487531
chimeracoder 8y ago
> Cannabis smokers have less qualms about driving under the influence than drinkers (in my experience) and from an enforcement perspective, it's harder to test for the presence of the drug because it stays in your system much longer (up to a month iirc?). There are so many substances that people can take that would impair their ability to drive. Many of them are available over the counter. Alcohol is the only one that's tested directly; it's the exception, not the norm.

Aloha 8y ago

it does smell bad. It's not a non-truth, its highly personal what smells good, or bad.

ojbyrne 8y ago
Reread the comment. It says the only complaint based on truth is that it smells bad. Once you decode the double negative.

Raphmedia 8y ago

> The biggest complaint I ever hear that isn't based on a non-truth is "it smells bad". Why should you send someone to jail based on their smell? You can legally cook pungent meals, burn smelly incense, slow cook meat over a stinking smoker, smoke fetid home rolled cigarettes, take one shower every month, have terribly foot fungus or a really bad case of farts. All smelly but legal things. Here in the Canadian town I live, you are not allowed to smoke or vape it on any public land. If you rent, your landlord has to agree to it. You can legalize it and still control it. To be honest, the smells decreased since it was made legal. Police would tolerate it so nobody called for "pot smell". That was a bad waste of resources. Now that it's up to the landlord to enforce it, people are more willing to call. I would never call the police on my neighbors for a smell. If I knew that someone went to jail over personal use because of me, I would feel really bad. However, I would ring the landlord in a heartbeat if their action was not allowed in the lease.

CompelTechnic 8y ago

I know people whose use of cannabis has been a crutch for problems in their lives, who have achieved less than they likely would have because it is so easy to do nothing, and stagnate, when drugs come easy. I also know people whose cannabis use has (unproveably, but likely) triggered latent schizophrenia. There are tradeoffs in everything, of course, and everyone is entitled to their own choices and ambitions, and these risks don't harm everyone who tries them, but put yourself in the shoes of the friends and family that see their loved one become a burnout. There can be real and justified hate of the drug when it has measurably damaged your family. There was an episode of South Park that addressed pot in a similar way- it is dangerous because it is so much fun you don't want to do anything else.

jchrisa 8y ago
If a portion of potential alcoholics become cannabis addicts instead, that's another net positive.

simonsarris 8y ago

> What societal harm is there? Brain damage in young adults. > "Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife" http://m.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full http://m.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full (2012)

citrablue 8y ago
Mobile site doesn't load on desktop, try [0] if you're on desktop. Addressing this study, it was a N=1038, cohort study that seems to only have adjusted for education. Further, there's a link on your cited article to [1], which is a response that suggests that the determining factor may have been personality, rather than cannabis use. There are other studies that indicate a similar conclusion, but I'm not clear how it's any different than any of a dozen socially accepted factors. The developing brain is very fragile. Playing football, or not getting enough exercise, can do similar damage. [0] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full http://www.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/110/11/E979 http://www.pnas.org/content/110/11/E979

SCAQTony 8y ago

The biggest complaint I have seen and read are MRI studies denoting reduced gray matter in the "orbitofrontal cortex" or that area of the brain which effects decision making. https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2016/09/regular-marijuana-use-associated-differences-in-brain-gray-matter-connectivity https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2016/09/reg...

acchow 8y ago

My parents are conservative and against legalization. I disagree with them hard but have gotten a better grasp of the conservative view. They also dislike alcohol use, especially due to drunk driving causing accidents. In the same way, they think allowing another substance to be legally consumed will increase impaired driving rates (even tho DUI is illegal). They think alcohol being legal has made it easier for high school students to obtain it. They think the same will happen with cannabis. They don't want substances (alcohol or otherwise) near their grandkids' brains. Alcohol has a breathalyzer test. There is no such spot test for cannabis intoxication. Which makes regulating drivers hard.

scarface74 8y ago
They think alcohol being legal has made it easier for high school students to obtain it. Trust me, it couldn’t get any easier for high school students to get marijuana than it currently is.

ionised 8y ago

It can trigger psychosis in people prone to depression and anxiety, which is why it bothers me when people suggest weed as a remedy to those things. Case-in-point: me. I'm still in favour of its legalisation but I'm not naive enough to believe there are no downsides to the substance. I've experienced many of them myself by abusing it for years.